News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

Androzek + other browser extensions used in widespread ad fraud campaign

The scammers are using malicious browser extensions— a tried and tested fraud tactic — to inject bogus advertisements into the results displayed on a search engine page. The more users who visit the fraudulent ad pages, the more money the perpetrators earn via a traffic-driven advertising program.
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In addition, the malware maintains persistence and exfiltrates website credentials, exposing affected devices to additional risks.
Researchers from Awake Security in June revealed a sweeping campaign, which amassed 33 million downloads of malicious code, that used Chrome extensions to spy on users in the oil and gas, finance and health care sectors.
The code has other insidious features, including the capability to alter security settings on some browsers to give scammers more control over the browser.

What can you do if you suspect your browser has been infected? Well, you won't like this. You better reinstall your browser (after running your antivirus as a precaution) and become suspicious of any extension that looks suspicious or lacks support or is outdated. Actually deleting the whole directories related to your browser might also be a good idea, after the antivirus has finished sweeping off all of the menaces that might have been present there. Then you could reinstall your browser or start using another one.

I gotta say you better stay away from Chinese and Russian browsers for your own sake.

Google hit with 2 new antitrust lawsuits from 4 private publishers

Lawsuits allege Google has violated the Sherman Act

Dozens of state attorneys general and the Justice Department also filed two separate antitrust complaints, led by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, respectively, against the tech giant on Thursday and Wednesday, respectively.
Sweepstakes Today is one of four companies that filed two private lawsuits, which Reuters published online, against Google, alleging that the tech giant has violated the Sherman Act by displaying monopolistic behavior through its digital ad sales.

Publishers, including Sweepstakes Today, have seen their revenues decline significantly as Google uses their monopoly to horde more and more of the digital advertisement revenues.

The company says it made about $150,000 per year for about 10 years before 2012, when Google, "through both acquisitions and vertical integration, began consolidating the various markets that together constitute the online advertising market, driving out rivals, and became a direct horizontal competitor of publishers such as Sweepstakes Today," the complaint reads.
The complaint also accuses Google of making it nearly impossible for publishers to do business with smaller advertisers that compete with Google.

Why is this a problem for small and medium sized companies?  

You see, Google basically controls everything, especially sales. Advertisers, publishers, exchanges, fees, Google defines rules at will and its customers simply have to comply with its demands just because. If a relatively successful competitor or startup shows up in the market, it seems nothing would prevent them from acquiring it alias smashing it under current circumstances. Perhaps the game developer that complained about Apple's app development policies might be a good example of how the advertisers and the others feel about Google now.

Editorial

I am compelled to add here that Google's insidious custom of making it practically impossible to find links to conservative voices' websites is alarming. You basically need to have an idea of how the website's domain might look like in order to find them. Links to renowned or popular sites like Fox News, Breitbart rarely show up in Google searches. So they don't just control advertisements or sales but also your opinion for you wouldn't be able to read any viewpoints except for those coming from liberal sources.

We're all supposed to be living in our own modern democracies so how's it possible Google tells you or me what we SHOULD be reading next? One thing is to suggest something and another to completely blow up any connection to Republican or conservative sources in general. Why should Google care about a Costa Rican like me as to make it hard for me to find such websites or news articles? Even so I still got involved in this antidemocratic mess. Who told Google it was OK to play Big Brother in web searches?

Right, I might need to tell you it's extremely easy to find articles published by New York Times or Associated Press or BBC. In fact I could say I usually find tons of them but barely none coming from any conservative source unless, I dunno, they think that site is a lame tabloid of sorts that nobody would take it seriously.

I wonder how long it'd take for Google to start blocking webpages on its own a la Facebook's or Twitter's account blocks.
When would the authorities stop such large companies or corporations from owning the internet? That includes information they've never produced. With Biden I could certainly tell you that it'd never happen, they've donated millions of dollars to his campaign after all.